The Triple Bind: Dangerous Expectations For Today’s Girls December 3, 2009

A new book is out about the dangerous environment in which today’s girls grow up. When girls as young as 12 are dieting and asking for plastic surgery, you know our culture has failed them.

At least 25 percent of teenage girls are in immediate danger from self-mutilation, eating disorders, violence, depression or suicide. From 15 to 20 percent of American girls from 10 to 19 suffer from major depression. The number of teenage binge eaters is increasing. About 10 percent of teen girls struggle with obsessive dieting while more than half worry about their weight.

These numbers are up strikingly from the past. The Triple Bind By Stephen Hinshaw & Rachel Kranz outlines the cultural factors they believe are responsible for these changes

The Triple Bind is:

1) Be good at girly stuff
2) Be good at guy stuff
3) Be sexy while doing it

Being good at all the traditional girl stuff: Girls today are expected to be good at relationships, empathy, bonding, be nice, obedient, helpful and nurturing. They are expected to be “good girls” by controlling their sexual feelings, but they are still expected to attract a boyfriend and husband.

This quality that leads girls to spend all evening talking a friend through a crisis instead of spending that time on their class work. This quality also leads girls and young women to suppress their own abilities or desires to boost a boyfriend’s ego or cater to an anxious parent.

Being good at the traditional guy stuff: Girls today are expected to compete for spots at top universities and spots in the job market. They’re expected to be good at sports, be competitive, assertive and ambitious.

In addition, the new dating culture encourages girls to behave like boys by having multiple brief sexual encounters devoid of feelings. Now girls are expected to be best friends forever and then fight that friend for a spot on the school team.

Conform to a narrow set of unrealistic standards with no alternative: Virtually no alternatives exist for today’s young women. Women sports stars and musicians once offered an alternative image for women to emulate, but now even female sports stars and musicians trade in sexuality.

All the alternatives that once existed like beatnik, tomboy, intellectual, hippie or punk have been co-opted by today’s media and are required to conform to narrow view of what is sexy. Even if you’re a woman who does something alternative like drive race cars, you’re expected to be sexy too – just like Danica Patrick.

These contradictory expectations are difficult to live up to and are putting our young women in peril. Every parent of a girl should take a look at this important book